If you
choose to focus your new business on a more specialized area of cleaning, such
as a floor cleaning service, you need to know how this can differ from offering
a wider variety of services to either residential or commercial clients. A
floor cleaning business is a very specialized field of the cleaning service
industry, and choosing to focus specifically on this area will mean that other
types of service will be out of your territory.

If you
advertise yourself as a floor cleaning business only, people won't be hiring
you to clean upholstery or windows. It can also be rewarding to narrow your focus, however, as it demonstrates to potential
customers that you have a specialty in this area of cleaning and have dedicated
your time to perfecting the process, rather than dividing up your time to a
variety of different services.

What are the Qualifications?

Floor care experience is necessary for anyone who will
be doing the actual cleaning. If you will be doing the cleaning, and have never
had actual floor care experience apart from cleaning your own home, then you
should learn before starting your business. You can't start off a business with
less-than-satisfactory services, since you won't make it far with that
reputation. In order to make it far as a business, you need to impress those
first few customers with your high quality and professional cleaning services.

What
does this mean for you? Perhaps it
means that you should look into working for another floor care service until
you learn the tricks of the trade, and know what needs to be improved to
succeed. This could be anywhere for a few months to a year even, until you feel
prepared to work in this industry on the same.

If
you already have floor care experience, or you won't be doing the actual
cleaning, then the next step is to ensure the quality of work from your
employees. You can do this by asking about their years of experience, asking
for recommendations from former clients, or accompanying them on their first
few cleanings to oversee and provide tips. Make sure that you trust your
employees to put full effort into each cleaning, even when you are not present,
so that the reputation of your business is not diminished by low quality
cleanings.

Seek
a business license from the
department of licensing and inspections, or a similar agency depending on your
location. The specifics of this will vary depending on your local and state
government's requirements. This is a step
you need to take before marketing or contacting any customers, so that you have
the proper licensing before starting the business in order to prevent any
potential problems.

Acquire
the proper insurance from a business
insurance agency. This is particularly important for floor cleaning services, since
residential cleaning services don't always require insurance, though it might
be in your interest to obtain it anyways. When there is the possibility that
you will be working in office spaces and commercial buildings, however, as you
will with a floor cleaning service, then most commercial clients require that you have insurance. In the
event that you or your employees damage the floor or property, this type of
insurance will cover the cost. It will also cover personal injury claims, so it
is in the best interest of both you and your commercial clients. If you are
starting out with a residential cleaning service, then you can also obtain
insurance, but it is especially important if you will be working in commercial
spaces.

You
can't leave out the business skills when
it comes to starting your own business. Customer relations, time management,
financing, and all other business matters are a critical factor to the success
of your business.

What Are Your Customers Looking For?

The
first question to ask is who are your
customers? As you start your business, you can shape the direction of your
marketing and where you choose to send information about your service. In
comparison to residential cleaning services, homeowners will only make up a
very small portion of your client-base. You may have a handful of homeowners
who request a thorough floor cleaning annually or bi-annually, but you will
actually find a majority of your customers are commercial clients.

These
clients could be businesses, schools, hospitals, churches, stores, or any
office building. The reason that such clients are much more frequent is because
their own success depends on the
cleanliness of their site, and there is a standard of cleanliness that their
customers will expect. A dirty floor in a restaurant or store can turn away
customers, so such clients will be looking for a quality floor cleaning service
to ensure that their workspace is spotless.

Your
customers are looking for your business to help maintain the reputation of their business. They will be looking for
consistent, thorough service, and if they are unsatisfied at all then they may
look for an alternative cleaning service.

Who is Your Competition?

Your
competition is going to be the floor cleaning business that have been around
longer and have proved their reputation in your local area. They may have
larger teams of employees and more expensive equipment, as they have been
around longer and raised the finances. You may be just starting out with a team
of two or three people, and the bare essentials for equipment. You can still
make your business a success, though, if you learn to highlight your strengths
to potential clients.

Spread
the word about your business with flyers or business cards that you can pass
out to offices. Ask whoever is in charge if they are satisfied with the rate
and quality of their current company, and if there is a specific issue they
have with their current floor cleaning service, you can explain how your team
can work to improve that. You can offer a great deal for the first cleaning so
they can see how your services hold up in terms of quality, and use this time
to build a professional relationship with the clients so that they are more
likely to use the contact information you have provided them. You can create on
online presence as well, to strengthen your marketing approach.

When you
choose to specialize with floor cleaning, you are committing to a variety of
services in this one area. Starting off, however, your business may not have
the finances available to afford all the heavy-duty equipment such as pressure
washers and refinishing machines. Start off with the basics, a broom and a mop,
and work your way up from there. Commercial-sized buckets for mopping large
workspaces will save you a lot of time and energy, and make your cleaning
process much more professional. Another item you will need is an industrial
vacuum that is easy to transport but also heavy-duty to provide the best
performance. You can't provide that quality shine without polishing equipment,
so be sure to look into what's available and produces the best results.

As you
work your way up, the equipment gets more intensive and thorough, so you will
be able to expand your client-base to include customers who request cleaning
with items such as auto floor scrubbers and other floor machines. These
machines can be expensive and you have to keep future maintenance in mind when
budgeting such equipment into your operations. Once you start offering a
service that includes heavy-duty equipment, you need to be able to follow
through with your customers. This means that if the equipment you need breaks
or malfunctions, you need some money set aside to fix it or buy a new one,
especially if you have several customers relying on your service.

Don't
forget that this equipment needs transportation as well, and it's likely not all
going to fit in your own personal car, nor is this an extremely professional
way to advertise your business. If you or your employees have larger vehicles,
you can always make them look more professional by purchasing magnetic logos
that can transform it from a personal car to a company vehicle. Otherwise, you
may be interested down the road in purchasing a van or other company car to
transport the heavy duty cleaning equipment.

What are the Standard Operations You Can Expect?

As owner
and entrepreneur of your new business, you get to set the standard operations
for how your business runs. Perhaps, however, you aren't quite sure what the
most efficient method of going about that would be.

Franchise or Independent?
- This is one of
the first questions you will need to address as you begin your own floor
cleaning company. Do you choose to franchise, and pay a fee to a larger company
so that you can have their brand on your work, or do you start fresh with your
own brand and name? This could have a major impact on your order of operations,
as working under a franchise could mean following their specific way of
operating so as to ensure consistency. This can be a help or a hindrance,
depending on whether you have preferences of yours own or if it is helping you
learn the trade.

If
you choose not to franchise, you will instead work as an independent
contractor. You are basically starting from scratch with your business, from
the name to the order of operations. Financially, this is the cheaper option of
the two, as fewer supplies are required and you don't have to pay the
franchising fee.

Cleaning Operations - At the basis of your cleaning
operations should be the driving force that every customer and cleaning job
matters, and deserves the highest quality service. Make sure that your
employees know that unsatisfactory cleanings can have a negative impact on your
company's name, and that can be extremely damaging to an independent
contractor. With a floor cleaning service, you will be working in the corporate
world often, and high-status clients can make a huge difference in the success
of your business.

Depending
on the size of the room and the demands of the client, the teams that you send
to clean may vary for each client. From simple cleanings to full-on buffing and
polishing, you will need to figure out how a team can work most efficiently
with the equipment and space provided. If you only have one carpet-cleaning
machine, then there may be no point in sending more than one employee. As you
expand and take in more customers, it may be critical to invest in multiple
machines so that you can take on larger tasks and send more employees as
necessary.

Scheduling - Unlike with residential clients,
your employees will not always build a professional relationship with the
customers. Most likely, the primary communication will be between the
commercial client and the contractor, which is you. In spaces such as offices,
stores, and restaurants, your teams will be working after hours and at nights
while the workplaces are closed. Because of this disconnect from the actual
customers, it is not always necessary to schedule the same employees for the
same clients. The primary reason you might want to do so is in order for your
employees to familiarize themselves with the workspace so that they can become
more efficient at cleaning it.

When
you make a contract with a new commercial customer, you will need to determine
how frequently they want their cleaning, and what type of cleaning they need.
This can vary greatly for each client. One client may want a basic weekly
cleaning of their store, while another client may want a monthly deep cleaning
of their carpets. Perhaps yet another wants a regular weekly cleaning, but also
requests a bi-annual polishing. All of these specifications and scheduling
requests can become confusing to keep up with, as they all are so different and
specific.

It
is important that you develop a reliable system for scheduling and organizing
customer requests, since you will often make appointments a long time in
advance. If they schedule a follow-up appointment for their polished floors
three months from now, you want to make sure that you have that in your
schedule so that you don't forget about it. Three months from now you won't
remember on your own that they requested that follow-up, so make yourself a
notice a week prior to their scheduled appointment so you can email or call
them to verify the appointment.

How Should You Approach Safety Concerns?

In an
industry that involves operating heavy-duty machinery often, you need to
understand potential safety concerns and relay these to your employees as well.
Work-related accidents are one of the reasons you should procure insurance
before starting out, but you should also take steps towards preventing any
accidents from happening.

You
might consider having your employees work in non-stick shoes, because when
polished floors get wet and soapy it can be extremely easy to slip and hurt
yourself. When riding on a scrubber or pushing equipment from behind that could
present potential harm, make sure that your employees have proper safety
goggles on. Employees who operate the ride-on scrubbers should be reminded to
wear seatbelts to prevent them from falling off the machinery.

Whatever
the risks are for the specific tasks that you or your employees are carrying
out, use the appropriate time and money to invest in the proper protective
gear. Not only does this increase your professionalism and efficiency, but also
most importantly, it keeps you from harm.

What Are Your Next Steps?

Are you
interested in focusing your cleaning business specifically on floor cleaning?
Then your next steps would be as follows:

1- Choose
whether you will franchise or be an independent contractor.

2- Look
into equipment and supplies that you will start off with.

3-
Start
seeking trustworthy and hardworking employees.

4- Begin
developing an organizational system for keeping up with records and scheduling.

5-
Read
the following chapters to learn about marketing, financing, and other major
factors to the success of your business.